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> Smoking and High Stress During Pregnancy Could Make Your Daughter a Smoker (STUDY)

Smoking and High Stress During Pregnancy Could Make Your Daughter a Smoker (STUDY)

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Summary: There are plenty of reasons to nix the nicotine habit when you're expecting, and now here's another one: Smoking during pregnancy, coupled with high levels of stress, increases the risk that your daughter will also turn into a smoker, which in turn sets up a vicious cycle of smoking moms-to-be who give birth to daughters who end up smoking during pregnancy.

By Sharon Mazel | Posted: January 10, 2014

Smoking during pregnancy — a bad idea because it increases the risk of miscarriage, low birth weight, birth complications, SIDS, and behavioral problems, among others — is also known to increase the chances of the child taking up the smoking habit when he's an adult. And now a new study published in the journal Biological Psychiatry suggests that being stressed out during pregnancy coupled with smoking increases the risk even more. Interestingly, this "double whammy" is seen only among girls of stressed out smokers, not among the sons. Experts say sex hormones could play a role in explaining these differences.

Researchers in Providence, Rhode Island conducted a 40-year longitudinal study using data from over 1,000 pregnant women enrolled in a health project that began in 1959. The mothers had their cortisol (stress hormone) and testosterone levels measured. They were also asked whether or not they smoked during pregnancy. Their children — 649 daughters and 437 sons — were followed for the next four decades and interviewed about their smoking habits as adults.

The study found that daughters of women who were smokers and whose cortisol levels were high during pregnancy were much more likely to be smokers as adults.

According to the lead researcher, the study suggests that "maternal smoking and high stress hormones represent a 'double-hit' in terms of increasing an offspring's risk for nicotine addiction as an adult. Because mothers who smoke are often more stressed and living in adverse conditions, these findings represent a major public health concern."

No links were found between elevated testosterone levels during pregnancy and smoking among the offspring later. There was also no link found between the sons of smokers with high cortisol levels and their eventual smoking habit.

"Our findings highlight the particular vulnerability of daughters to long-term adverse outcomes following maternal stress and smoking during pregnancy," said the lead researcher. "We don't yet know why this is, but possible mechanisms include sex differences in stress hormone regulation in the placenta and adaptation to prenatal environmental exposures... Furthermore, if daughters of smoking mothers are more likely to grow up nicotine dependent, the result is dangerous cycle of intergenerational transmission of nicotine addiction."

Clearly, it pays to kick butt when you're expecting — for so many reasons. There are plenty of tips on how to do that here. It also pays to keep your anxiety levels down too, since it seems that being stressed out plus smoking is a bad combination when it comes to the health of your baby-to-be. Find ways to unwind without reaching for a cigarette (think massage, a good friend to talk to, a walk around the block, some quiet breathing, exercise). You'll be doing your health a favor... plus, you'll be protecting your daughter-to-be as well.

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